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Are you helping Pennsylvania on the ballots that aren’t dated so they can still be counted?
— Sandee
Yes, my law firm, Elias Law Group, is continuing to fight against this unjust law in court.
No one should have their vote thrown out simply for failing to put a date next to their signature, or put the wrong date next to their signature on their mail-in ballot return envelope.
The county date stamps all of the ballots when they are received, so there's no question that these were lawful ballots received in time to be counted for the election. Republicans want to disqualify these ballots and disenfranchise voters because their entire strategy for 2024 is to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat.
The 3rd Circuit recently rejected ([link removed]) one legal theory that would have required these ballots to be counted, but I can promise you the fight is not over.
Do you know if real protections are in place for communities that use ballot drop boxes? I recall being stunned and terrified seeing MAGA thugs dressed in skull masks and other intimidating attire, some carrying arms in open carry-states, parked in lawn chairs right next to the ballot boxes, during the 2020 election season.
— Carolyn
Great question. I have warned ([link removed]) that the greatest threat to voting and free and fair elections in 2024 will be Republican vigilantism, which can take several forms.
One is the mass voter challenges that we have seen crop up in states like Georgia and elsewhere. The other is voter intimidation and harassment at the polls, or in this case, at drop boxes. Republicans have launched a war on these secure metal containers, challenging them in court in numerous states.
In 2022 in Maricopa County, we saw vigilantes trying to intimidate people returning their mail-in ballots. They were sued and forced to stop. But I unfortunately suspect we'll see more of this in 2024.
It is important that election officials and law enforcement have a zero-tolerance approach to these kinds of harassment and intimidation. I can assure you that my team and I will be in court, wherever we see this and will fight to protect voters.
If Trump is re-elected (shudder), can he reinstate John Eastman and Giuliani to their respective bars?
— Karen
No! Good news: state bars operate under the auspices of the various states, typically under their state court system. There is nothing that the president of the United States can do to undo a disbarment.
But remember, disbarment ([link removed]) is only one of the penalties that many of these lawyers face. We've seen these lawyers sanctioned by courts and a number of them have faced or are facing criminal penalties.
I worry that if Donald Trump is elected again, he will try to pardon these wrongdoers. He is already trying to excuse and normalize their behavior. I fear that if he is elected, he might even try to appoint some of these disbarred lawyers into positions in government.
How is it that even when a map is declared to be illegal because it is a racial gerrymander, a state gets to continue to use it?
— Peter
This is a great question and one of the great travesties of the courts in the last few years. They have moved too slowly to remedy racial discrimination in the redistricting process and have instead prioritized state convenience over the rights of voters.
While there are times when a court case is decided so close to the election that it is impractical to redraw a map, that should motivate courts to move faster. Worse still, the Supreme Court has defined that period far too early — months and months before elections take place.
The result of that has meant that Black voters in particular, but minority voters in general, have been forced to vote under illegal and unconstitutional maps. We saw this in 2022 in Alabama and Louisiana, and we are seeing it in 2024 in South Carolina ([link removed]) and elsewhere.
With 4 years to figure something out, what potential legal theories do you think Republicans could/will use if Trump loses to try and overturn the election? Will they try some of the same fringe theories or something new?
The Republican strategy for 2024 is to make it harder to vote and easier to cheat. A lot of the focus right now is on the stuff they're doing to make it harder to vote.
They are putting barriers in front of mail-in voting, trying to do away with drop boxes and making voter registration harder. But let's not forget that 2020 was about trying to cheat after the election. Republicans have learned from their humiliating losses in 2020 and are coming up with new ways ([link removed]) to cheat after 2024.
Our job on the pro-democracy side is to meet Republicans wherever they are. So wherever they are trying to suppress the vote or set up a legal regime that will allow them to cheat, you see my law firm and others in court. But it will ultimately be the job of all of us to watch carefully during the post-election period to make sure that they don't get away with intimidating voters, harassing election officials or ultimately cheating voters out of a free and fair election.
Just got an email from Rise saying, “Judicial Watch wants your voter registration invalidated and that they are suing the state of Illinois for ‘not removing enough votes from their registrations compared to its total number of registered voters.” Is this true?
— Jane
Yes. What we're seeing in Illinois with Judicial Watch is part of a right-wing strategy — which also involves other right-wing organizations and the Republican National Committee — to file lawsuits ([link removed]) to remove voters from the rolls all around the country.
This is part of their strategy of making it harder to vote and easier to cheat. They are making it harder to vote by trying to purge voters and making it more difficult for people to vote if they've been unlawfully removed. They are using these purge lawsuits as a setup to make it easier to falsely claim after the election that these voters should have been purged and therefore their votes should not count.
My law firm is fighting these lawsuits all throughout the country and we'll continue to do so wherever they crop up.
To what extent is the Department of Justice involved in going after these attempts to limit voting rights? I’m as avid a consumer of news from legit news outlets as anyone and I’m not seeing much involvement to litigate against these attempts by the DOJ. Is it just one of those “under the radar” things?
No, it’s not under the radar. The DOJ brings the cases it has the resources and expertise to bring. But private litigants have always been at the forefront of most litigation enforcing the nation’s voting and civil rights laws.
That’s one of the reasons why Republicans are attacking ([link removed]) the ability of private litigants to enforce critical voting rights laws like Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. They know that if they knock out the private litigants, the DOJ will not be in position to adequately cover all of the cases necessary to ensure that every citizen that is eligible to vote is able to do so and have their ballot accurately counted.
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